Question 1 A retailer's Google Search account reports a £42 CPA against a profitable threshold of £70. Search impression share on the commercially strongest queries is already very high. Meta currently averages £58 CPA but has substantially more reachable audience. Which conclusion is most defensible? All incremental budget should go to Search because its average CPA is lower. All incremental budget should go to Meta because its available audience is larger. Historical averages are insufficient; compare marginal headroom and expected economics of the next spend in each channel. Split the budget equally because both channels are below the profitability threshold.

Explanation: Strategy concerns the return on the next unit of investment. Search may be more efficient historically but have limited incremental headroom.

Question 2 A B2B team reduces LinkedIn spend because its £180 cost per lead is much higher than Meta's £65. CRM analysis later shows LinkedIn leads convert to £20,000 opportunities at four times the rate of Meta leads. What failed? LinkedIn should have been judged on CPC rather than CPL. The allocation decision used an intermediate platform metric without connecting it to downstream commercial value. The company should never compare lead costs across platforms. Meta should have been optimised for a higher CPL.

Explanation: Lead cost matters only in relation to lead quality and expected downstream economics.

Question 3 · Select all that apply A company is deciding whether to add a new paid channel. Which conditions strengthen the strategic case for doing so? The channel can perform a clearly defined commercial job that is not already adequately served. The platform is currently popular with other marketers. Expected customer economics can support the likely acquisition cost. The existing channels have been running for at least six months. There is a credible way to measure whether the new channel creates useful incremental value.

Explanation: A clear job, viable economics and credible measurement strengthen the case. Popularity and elapsed time do not.

Question 4 A paid social campaign acquires newsletter subscribers at £14 each. Immediate ROAS is poor, but subscribers generate significant repeat purchasing over the next nine months. What is the strongest strategic interpretation? The campaign is unprofitable because revenue was not generated immediately. Newsletter acquisition should be treated as an organic rather than paid media objective. The advertising platform should receive credit for all future customer revenue. Subscriber acquisition should be evaluated against downstream cohort value, while remaining careful not to confuse attributed value with incremental value.

Explanation: Paid media can legitimately build owned audiences, but downstream value still needs commercial and causal interpretation.

Question 5 Meta reports £250,000 attributed revenue and Google Ads reports £210,000. Total company revenue for the period is £360,000. Which conclusion is safest? The platform figures almost certainly contain overlapping credit and should not be summed as incremental business revenue. The company must have underreported at least £100,000 of revenue. The channel reporting £250,000 should automatically receive more budget. One platform's attribution data must be technically broken.

Explanation: Multiple platforms can legitimately claim the same conversion under their own attribution methodologies.

Question 6 A brand has one objective: grow new-customer contribution profit. The media team proposes judging every channel against the same last-click ROAS target. What is the most important weakness? All channels should instead use the same CPA target. Last-click attribution is always unusable. Channels may perform different roles in creating and capturing demand, so identical attribution-based targets can distort their true commercial contribution. New-customer contribution should not be used in paid media strategy.

Explanation: Cross-channel strategy must account for channel role as well as commercial economics.

Question 7 · Select all that apply Which characteristics indicate that a team is operating with a portfolio mindset rather than simply managing platforms independently? Every channel is required to maintain its historical percentage of total spend. Budgets can move when marginal opportunity changes. CRM and business outcomes can override conclusions suggested by platform metrics alone. Channel roles are defined relative to the wider customer journey and business objective. Each platform team independently maximises the conversions it can claim.

Explanation: Portfolio thinking requires flexible allocation, wider business evidence and clearly defined channel roles.

Question 8 A company launches Meta prospecting, after which branded Search conversions rise. Meta itself receives relatively little last-click credit. What should the strategist conclude? The branded Search conversions prove Meta created all of the additional demand. The pattern is consistent with Meta influencing demand, but stronger validation is needed before treating the relationship as causal. Meta should be stopped because last-click attribution is weak. All branded Search revenue should be reassigned to Meta.

Explanation: Correlation can support a hypothesis, but causal confidence requires stronger evidence.

Question 9 An agency recommends increasing spend because a channel's average ROAS is 6.0 against a target of 4.0. Which missing question is most strategically important? Did the channel use enough campaign types? Is the recommendation score above 90%? Can the historical attribution model be changed to data-driven? What return is expected from the additional spend, and how much scalable demand remains at acceptable economics?

Explanation: Scaling depends on marginal opportunity, not simply on the attractiveness of historical averages.

Question 10 Which statement best summarises Module 1? The strongest paid media strategy is the one that activates the largest number of channels. Paid media strategy is primarily the process of improving campaign-level CPA and ROAS. Paid media strategy allocates money and attention according to objective, economics, demand, channel role, measurement quality and marginal growth opportunity. The most reliable strategy is to place the majority of budget into whichever platform reports the strongest attribution.

Explanation: Strategy sits above individual platform optimisation and connects media investment to commercial opportunity.